What's the best nose shape for long range shooting?

[Distant Thunder]

Kurt,

You make a very point about the money and prolate designs, they seem to need to be driven hard and/or spun fast to do their best. When Brent first started shooting the 1.520" prolate he uses for long range it was with an 18-twist barrel and it did NOT go well. He very quickly rebarreled to a 16-twist and things went much better until his powder problems happened. He is getting those worked out now and should be back in good form this year with that long prolate bullet. He should do well at Lodi in May.

He also shoots a prolate design for silhouette in his 18-twist high wall, but that bullet is shorter than his long-range prolate and is spun fast enough for mid-range and silhouette distances.

I tried the prolate design in my 18-twist Shiloh .45-90 and I had to keep the length short enough that the bullet barely made 500 grains. When I lengthened the bullet it didn't shoot well at all for me. So I capped the pointed nose with a 1/3 caliber nose radius and that created a shorter bullet (1.440") that weighs 528 grains. With that change it has won a lot of Creedmoor matches for me. It has about the same weight as Brent's long prolate, but in a bullet short enough to be well stabilized in my 18-twist barrels. I think the prolate design is a very good one but it has to be short enough for the twist rate of the rifle.

Matching the bullet length to the twist is so often overlooked by shooters and mold makers that I think it is the major reason some shooters struggle. If they used the same design in a length that was right for their twist rate they would be shocked at how much better their bullets would shoot. It doesn't take being a lot shorter sometimes either, .020-.030" can make a big difference when the conditions are nasty. It's length not weight that is important here. Keep the length short enough for the twist and increase the bullet weight by changing the nose profile. That's what I did.